It has been a few days since I had time or the energy to post something new. It just has been so crazy busy and frustrating that now I don't even know where to start.
Sunday, 26th of August:
We met up with Miri and Sean to look at Sean's Mum house. It was a really cute little house, we would have love to rent but not buy. It was just not big enough. After that we went to friends of them and to see the neighborhood they going to move to. And, well we loved it there. We knew this is where we would like to buy something. But that isn't so easy first because it is not cheap and there is not much available. But Pat (friend of Sean and Miri) told us that there was a foreclosure down the road. We went there right away to look at it and it seemed very nice. We will have to contact the bank and see if we can look at it inside.
After a nice evening with new people our first weekend was over.
Monday, 27th of August:
We went to see the foreclosure and it was a dissapointment. The outside is really nice but the inside needs too much work and there are water spots all over so mold might be a problem, too. Oh well, it was worth a shot.
Tuesday, 28th of August:
We are going back and forth on whether we want to buy, rent or even live on-post again. There are nice places on-post but only for people who f$%ß like rabbits and have 10 kids. But we got put on the list and see what they might offer but they said it can take up to 4 months! That evening we looked at another house but that needs a lot of work, too and the landlord needs a few weeks to fix it all. But even if it is fixed, the rooms are just too small, most houses, we can't even fit our bed in. He was a very nice man though, Military friendly and a realtor, so maybe we found a realtor for the future.
This whole house hunting is very dissapointing but we don't have a choice because this hotel is really frustrating. If I wouldn't be cleaning myself no one would! I will complain about that!
Yesterday: I stayed "home" to look at houses online. We made another two appointments to look at houses tomorrow and Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed! Also, I went to the Education Center to find out what kind of degree or certification are offered because I need a job, not only to get out of here but also to make the money for our dream house ;-)
This whole move is very stressful so far.

Well, finally it is the weekend and we get to relax and spend some time together exploring our new home. Friday evening we only went to the PX, ate something and looked around. Saturday morning we went to the pool to get some excercise to burn off some off some of the junk food we've been eating. In the afternoon we went to a Mall and visited with Miriam and her boyfriend. We got to meet their daughter and had dinner at a Mexican Restaurant, which was really good! We hung out until like almost 22:00 and went home. We had a good time.
Today we are looking at a house. I will let you know how that goes.

Today we actually got breakfast and were not tired. Laurence went to work and I stayed back at the hotel and got to talk to my mother, aunt and also my grandparents. It was good talking to them. Around lunchtime Laurence came back home and we went to the commissary to get something to eat. We thought it would be cheaper to go there but their sandwiches are just as expensive as subway. Oh well I got me a microwave meal which sucked. Some things are just so expensive, for example three apples cost us $2,07.
Later on we had some Chick-Fil-A for dinner, which was AWESOME. No worries I do not agree with the owner ;-) We also picked a new cell phone up at Wal-Mart. Laurence messed with it all night and talked to Customer Service and it is still not working. Hopefully tomorrow it will work so we have two phones. Iím excited for the weekend and see more of our new hometown.

Laurence got up at 7am and I my lucky a$$ was able to sleep until 10am. Since the front desk didnít tell us that there is a breakfast I had to wait until Laurence came back with the car to get food. So, we just went to Popeyes to get some lunch. Well, going to get food at 12:30pm on a military base isnít easy but Ft. Jackson is the worst. People were lining up outside. Drive-through wasnít much better but we didnít have a choice. After lunch I dropped Laurence off to go to the front desk after my incident earlier with housekeeping. What happened was, that I wanted to give them my dirty sheets (I changed myself the night before since we didnít want to sleep in some strangers sheets). Well, she wouldnít take them and was quite rude telling me this wasnít a pet room. The front desk informed me that we will be moved to a pet room now. And thatís where we are living now for who knows how long. We will have to get with housing and find out how we are getting off-post.
Hightlight of the day was to eat some Panera Bread and going to Target.

Next step was to cancel our connecting flight since we are unable to take the cats on the flight. That was taken care of fast and now we had to take a shuttle bus to the car rental place. I thought how do we get 5 suitcases, 2 carry-ons plus 2 kennels on the bus? Luckily the bus driver was very nice and waited on us. When we arrived at the car rental there were about 100 people (well that is how many it felt) in front of us including these Asian guys who were discussing with the agent for about 30mins. After like 45mins we finally got our car and were able to take off. It was already 3pm and we had to stop at target to get us a GPS and a pay phone. Well the pay phone was a pain in the a$$. It wouldnít work with the phone it came with so I tried my German phone. And fortunately it worked BUT my battery was about to die. It was enough to make a few phone calls until we stopped again to get car charger for my phone. With some traffic and a few stops we finally arrived at Fort Jackson at 3am! I have to say we are very lucky to be alive. Laurence was so brave and stayed awake. I would have fallen asleep driving. I was able to drive, maybe, 1h of the whole trip.

As we arrived at the hotel where the new unit made reservations we had another surprise to deal with. They had a mix up and gave our pet room to someone without a pet. So, the person had to move out at 3am in the morning so we could move in. Around 4am we finally got to lay down only to be woken up again at 7am. So far PCSing is hell on earth. Good night!

So, it is Tuesday 21st of August 2012, 3am and our BIG day of moving has started, way too early for us but nothing we can do now! My biggest concerns were the cats. They already freaked out moving them from our home to the hotel in Ansbach.
On our way to Frankfurt Airport Pauly was so freaked out, screaming and panting that I almost brought him back to leave him in Germany. Which made me think if I take him out of his kennel, it might calm him down. Well I guess the only thing that was calmer was his belly after shitting on my lab. Ok, so I sit there with cat shit in my hand and on my pants. We stopped and I had to change into shorts, which I knew is going to become a problem along the trip. After a while Pauly and also Maggie tried to relax a little bit.
Checking in the cats was easier as expected. The lady at the counter was really nice and tried to calm me down. We filled everything out and didnít have to pay as much as I thought we do. That saved us 150Euro but I knew someone somewhere else is gonna collect the money from us.
To get the kennels approved we had to take the cats out of it, in the middle of the airport of course! Right after I did this, Laurence pointed towards my mum. I didnít realize it for a second but there she and Dina were. That was too much and I started crying like a baby. I was really happy to see them again and I didnít have time to worry about the cats. After an hour it was time to say good-bye again.
On the plane the captain informed us that will be delayed about 20min because some people checked-in very early that morning but didnít show up for boarding. And of course their luggage was all the way back in loading area. At this point it didnít make me happy but 20mins arenít that much, I thought to myself. Well little did I know that 20mins would become a lot of time later on. The plane ride was ok; we had our own little TV to keep ourselves entertained. I was even able to sleep for a little bit.
While we were docking on I was able to see the cats on the airfield, sitting on a little wagon with like 5 other kennels. And again I was getting nervous. But they were right; they were the first things off the plane.
I think this was the shortest line to go through Immigration I was ever on. The officer opened my visa package, signed everything, took a picture and fingerprints (again). After that was done I wanted to go get the cats. Laurence went and took care of our luggage and I was searching for our cats. I thought they would give the animals out to the right owner, no they were just all sitting there at the end of the in baggage claim area. When I arrived there I only saw Pauly. He was doing fine, we was happy to see me. But where is Maggie? After another 5 mins they brought more animals out and she was one of them. She looked very scared and had some white stuff on her face. But other than that she was also happy to be back on ground.